WEEK 8: TENSORFLOW/PYTORCH, RNNS, LSTMS

Tensorflow/PyTorch, RNNs, LSTMs, Exercise 5 distributed

November 03, 2025

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Weekly Materials

Additional Notes

Week 8: TensorFlow/PyTorch

Learning Objectives

  • Master popular deep learning frameworks: TensorFlow and PyTorch
  • Understand sequence modeling with RNNs and LSTMs
  • Apply deep learning to time series and sequential data
  • Develop practical skills in framework-specific implementations
  • Explore self-attention mechanisms and their applications

Topics Covered

  • TensorFlow Tour: Comprehensive introduction to TensorFlow ecosystem
  • PyTorch Introduction: Practical PyTorch for machine learning applications
  • Deep Learning for Sequence Modeling: Working with sequential data
  • Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs): Understanding sequential dependencies
  • Long Short-Term Memory (LSTMs): Advanced sequence modeling
  • Self-Attention: Introduction to attention mechanisms

Schedule

  • Lecture: Monday, November 3, 2025 (10:15 - 12:00)
  • Practice Session: Monday, November 3, 2025 (16:30 - 18:00)
  • TA Session: Framework comparison and hands-on exercises

Key Concepts

  • Framework Comparison: TensorFlow vs PyTorch advantages and use cases
  • Computational Graphs: Static vs dynamic graph construction
  • Sequential Data: Time series, text, and other sequential patterns
  • RNN Architecture: Vanilla RNNs, vanishing gradient problem
  • LSTM Components: Forget gate, input gate, output gate
  • Attention Mechanisms: Self-attention and transformer basics

Practical Applications

  • Function Approximation: Using TensorFlow for analytical functions
  • Time Series Prediction: LSTM models for ozone concentration data
  • Stock Price Modeling: Financial time series analysis
  • Sequence Classification: Text and sequential data classification

Hands-on Examples

  • Warm-up with TensorFlow: Approximate analytical functions
  • Comprehensive TensorFlow tour and best practices
  • PyTorch introduction for supervised learning problems
  • LSTM applications to real-world time series data
  • Comparison of framework implementations

Assignments

  • Exercise 5: Distributed this week - Framework implementation comparison
  • Practice with both TensorFlow and PyTorch
  • Implement RNN/LSTM models for sequence prediction

Technical Skills

  • TensorFlow model building and training
  • PyTorch tensor operations and automatic differentiation
  • Sequence preprocessing and data preparation
  • RNN/LSTM architecture design and optimization
  • Model evaluation for sequential data